


linger in the chambers of the sea

by rashaka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: AU of episode 3x13, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beaches, Drama, F/M, Feelings, Grief/Mourning, Hugs, I'm just saying MAYBE they could have kissed in that scene who knows, Kissing, Love, Romance, Sexual Tension, Too many feels, Unresolved Sexual Tension, a half-assed attempt at science, clarke griffin & octavia blake - Freeform, fortuitously attractive scenery, like intensely romantic kissing bc that's how Bellarke rolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rashaka/pseuds/rashaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For three days, the Floukru boats don't come. For three days, they wait on the beach and face their fears and loves. For three days, they have <i>time</i>.</p><p>// Alternate ending to 3x13, picking up from the hug. Clarke, Bellamy, and Octavia and Jasper too. All the feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins near the end of episode 3x13, Join Or Die, and deviates from the beach hug scene onward. It will close at the start of 3x14. 
> 
> Recommended listening:  
> ["Different Worlds"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd5fe2Km7MU) by Jes Hudak  
> ["All I Want"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqJoVlnmdFQ) by Kodaline  
> [" "Tristesse" - Etude no. 3 in E major, Op. 10 no. 3"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmQBFLJAIcY) by Chopin

  
  
_Day 1_  
  
  


The first day leaving Arkadia concluded with Bellamy slamming the rover's breaks in front of a fallen log, Octavia's mad dash to shore, green fire, and a series of unpleasant confrontations.  When all was said and done, night had fallen with the group divided.  Jasper stood by Octavia as she dropped sprigs of pine into the campfire, watching it burst in chemical flashes that lit up their tiny spit of land.  Clarke left them to it.  First her eyes, then her feet tracked the despondent form that trudged along the rocky water line, ever further from the group's source of warmth and light.

Ahead of her, Bellamy shuffled on the beach, leaning first on one foot, then the other.  With his arms hugging his body, he seemed thin in the cold moonlight.  When he heard her coming, Bellamy straightened, pushed his chin out, and refused to look her way.

“Let me guess, you came here to fix things.” He grunted the next words, spinning them into an insult.  “Wanheda, the Peacemaker.”

Clarke took a deep breath.  “I came to see if you're okay.”

“Well, I don't need your help,” he retorted.  Even so, he turned slightly, as if to check the effect this statement had on her.  For all the snap of his words, Bellamy’s eyes looked wide and unhappy in the darkness, with little dots reflecting the light of the distant fire.  Clarke nodded, and instead of pushing it, moved to join him in silent contemplation.  They stood side by side on the shore of Lincoln’s small inlet, watching the moon’s reflection get swallowed by eddies in the dark water.  The night was cold, too cold to be this far from light and heat, but she could afford to wait.

Elbow to elbow, she sensed when he looked back at the fire, and the insurmountable canyon between.  Bellamy let out a long breath, then whispered her name like an invocation: “Clarke.”  He gestured hopelessly toward the green beacon and the faraway girl keeping it strong, “I've lost her.”

She took a step nearer, and Bellamy allowed it.  With every slow minute his skittishness gave way to grief, an emotion Clarke knew intimately by now.  There was an impulse in her to reach out and take his hand, but she hesitated, testing out words instead.  “Give her time, Bellamy.  There may be blood on your hands, but it's not Lincoln's.”

He met her eyes finally, and the hitch in his voice carved into Clarke’s heart.  “Some of it is.”

Pain like that, she knew.  Pain like that bore into your chest and gnawed at your bones, twisting inside till everything was poisoned.  It felt like only yesterday that Lexa had looked Clarke in the eye and told her, "I never meant to turn you into this." Clarke had hated her for that, for taking something so huge and making it seem trite,  but now, after everything—after losing Lexa to peace instead of war—Clarke could almost understand what she’d meant.  Bellamy may have done this to himself, because he let himself believe that he could do something terrible if it meant saving the people he loved, but it still hurt to see that weight cloaked around him.  This was the last thing Clarke wanted for Bellamy when she left Arkadia, and it hurt even more knowing that she could never lift it from his shoulders.

“Maybe,” she agreed, blinking back memories of Lincoln.  Clarke could still picture his soft smile as he wrapped his arms around Octavia, or his determined expression when he lifted his bow.  Through all the tragedy that befell him, Lincoln kom Trikru had been a bright star in a sky full of stormclouds.  Life on the ground would take and take and take from such a person, till it finally took the very breath from your lungs.  Then the people you’d loved were left to stand by a fire with only tears and trinkets to remember you by: a sculpted necklace, a weathered tin box, or a tattered book of maps to nowhere.

Thinking of Octavia’s loss was too close to Clarke’s own pain, so she pushed it aside, and held Bellamy’s gaze.

 “You didn't want that to happen,” she continued.  “You tried to stop it.  Octavia will forgive you eventually.  The question is, will you forgive yourself?”

He opened closed his mouth, eyes skating back to the fire, to his sister.  A tear escaped and trailed down his cheek when he shook his head.  “Forgiveness is hard for us,” he said at last.

Clarke inhaled, observing the way his thoughts played so openly in his expressions.  She swallowed, trying to memorize his face, his eyes.  Seeing a crack in Bellamy’s façade was so rare that Clarke wanted to cherish it—hold it close to her heart as proof that they could still be something to each other. 

When he was ready, his words were soft and earnest.  “I was so angry at you for leaving.  I don't want to feel that way anymore.”

Biting her lip, Clarke had to look away.  Regret and relief blossomed at once in her chest, and it took all her strength to find the right words.  He needed to know that he was not alone in his burdens anymore.  Life could be terrible but if there was going to be hope, it would be right here, between the two of them.  “You know,” replied Clarke, sucking in her breath, “You're not the only one trying to forgive yourself.”

Oh, was that the truth.  How many ghosts did she carry?  Warriors and children, killers and innocents.  A boy with earnest eyes and an easy smile, then the smoking remains of TonDC.  And last—the tiny flame hidden in her coat.  Maybe it was too many, but what mattered now was the choices they made together.  Clarke straightened her shoulders, stepping closer to Bellamy and putting all of her heart into her voice.

“Maybe we'll get that someday,” she offered.  “But we need each other, Bellamy.” His jaw tightened at the sound of his name.  He swiped another stray tear off his cheek as if it were inconsequential, and looked at the water.  If Clarke’s fingers itched to touch that place on his cheek, well, she managed to hold back. 

 “What we're doing now, the only way we're gonna pull this off is together.”

Hearing this, he took a deep breath and nodded, gathering his will to face her.  As if all the pain could be redistributed, boxed away, and if she just allowed him a moment to compose himself, he could scale mountains for their cause.  The motion was so quintessentially Bellamy that Clarke felt her heart lurch in her chest.  In an instant, she’d crossed the gulf between them and thrown her arms around his shoulders.

For all the days of anger between them, he wrapped Clarke in his grip like she was the tether in a storm.  The man who could have held back from her touch was months, years in the past.  When his arms found their place across her back, Bellamy buried his face into her shoulder.  She felt the slight chill of his cheeks brush her neck, then the warmth of his breath as it settled into her skin. 

Clarke knew this—she’d felt this.  He’d hugged her this way on a sunlit morning eons ago, begging silently for what she couldn’t give. 

Strength.  Solace.  A promise.

Pushing her chin onto the rough fabric of his jacket, Clarke held him more fiercely than she ever had before.  Bellamy sucked in a haggard breath, then propped his own chin up on her shoulder.  Coming home, their bodies aligned, wrapped together like a single pillar on a rocky beach.  While the water lapped in a gentle rhythm beside them, Clarke inhaled, and it felt for a moment as if the whole universe were in sync to their breaths.

“Clarke?” he whispered, at once small and huge in her embrace. Tilting his head, his cheek found a new spot against the crown of her hair, and her whole frame shivered.

“If you—” Bellamy’s voice caught, but he persevered, dropping the words like dew drops onto her hair. “If you stay... I’ll stay too.”

She twisted her fingers into the seam of his jacket, and promised, “We both stay.  Through whatever comes, and—and after.  Okay?  You and me.”

“You and me,” repeated Bellamy, the words ghosting over her ear as he drew back.  His hands dropped from her quickly, and seemed to clench at his side for a moment before he wiped at his eyes again, offering a tremble of a smile.  Clarke’s own hands felt leaden as she crossed her arms and tucked her fingers into the material of her coat.  They stood for moment together, the earlier tension stretched into a new, fumbling awkwardness.

“It’s cold,” he said, gaze dropping to her folded arms.  He shrugged in the general direction of their friends.  “We should get back to the fire and work out the watch for tonight.”

“Yeah,” agreed Clarke.  She tipped her head back, smiling just a bit.  “Walk with me?”

He huffed, a small sound almost buried by the rustle of tides, and together they tread up the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All feedback and kudos are appreciated, treasured. Especially if you comment on something that catches your mind--I go totally nuts for feedback. It makes my night! :) And yes, there is more to come.
> 
> Thank you to [winterwaters](http://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwaters/pseuds/winterwaters) for her endless faith, feedback, and encouragement on this particular project. Also thanks to Kay and Fee for being the awesomest and most talented peeps in the land.


	2. Day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I trust you,” she told him, linking their hands together. Bellamy’s fingers, longer and darker, bent in rough tandem with her own, till she could feel every place where gun callous met spear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["Different Worlds" by Jes Hudak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd5fe2Km7MU) is basically this fic's theme song. I like the acoustic version but [the original](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lngcg3Lae6Q) is good too. 
> 
> Thank you to [verbaepulchellae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/verbaepulchellae/pseuds/verbaepulchellae), [raincityruckus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/raincityruckus/pseuds/raincityruckus), and [winterwaters](http://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwaters/pseuds/winterwaters) for their beta advice!

  
_Day 2_  


 

They took shifts through the long night, keeping the fire tall with regular bursts of green.  Without provisions it was an uncomfortable evening; everyone sat propped up against logs, facing the meager heat of the flames.  One by one they took turns dropping pine needles into the fire, wishing for a light on the water.

No Floukru boats arrived.  Come morning, they could see no ships or watercraft for the length of the inlet, and the woods remained silent.  Bellamy stood up between the rock piles and said what the rest were thinking: “We need to consider moving.”

“No,” said Octavia, jabbing a hefty branch against the embers.  The force of it made the broken, burning wood pile teeter, and a spray of fresh sparks danced toward Bellamy.

“Well,” tried Jasper, leaning back and squinting from the smoke.  “It’s been—”

She cut him off, “We wait.”

“This place is undefended."  Bellamy gestured up and down the spit of land.  “We need to check our surroundings or someone might come after us before Luna’s people even get here.”

“I said, we wait!” Octavia snapped, standing up.  “This is where Lincoln wanted us to be.  We stay here, and we wait for Luna’s people to come.”

Bellamy opened his mouth, then shut it so forcefully his jaw twitched.  From her place across the fire, Clarke tried a compromise.  “We could go hide the rover,” she suggested.  “We shouldn’t have left it out like that in the first place.  Anyone who comes across it will know we’ve been here.”

Octavia rolled her eyes, spun, and stalked down the pebbled beach, dragging her branch along the sandy ground.  “Make whatever plans you want!” she snarled over her shoulder.  “Just keep the signal going.”

Clarke looked at Jasper, then at Octavia’s shrinking shape in the distance, then at Bellamy.  Bellamy inclined his head just slightly, and Clarke bit her lip.  Opposite them, Jasper gave a loud, put-upon sigh, and they jerked their heads to him in unison.

“Fine,” he announced.  He tossed a twig in the fire, the motion as insolent as possible.  “You can all go run off to do whatever, and I’ll watch the fire.  It’s fine."  Clarke and Bellamy ignored him.

“How about I stay with Jasper to plan a look out spot,” offered Bellamy, conciliatory.  “Since we could be here a while.”

Clarke gave him a weak smile.  “Sure.  I’m gonna..."  she turned her body toward the beach stretch, and Bellamy nodded.  Giving him and Jasper a grateful look, Clarke turned and made her way along the rough shore.  

Octavia had the sense to stay in sight, and as she approached Clarke could see the other girl had set her branch aside, in favor of skipping rocks.  With each vicious swing, a smooth pebble skated over the low waves.  It reminded Clarke of a film she’d watched in the rec room on Alpha Station, though it was doubtful Octavia had ever seen such a thing.  

“You’re good at that,” she observed.

“What do you want, Clarke?"  Octavia asked, skipping another rock.  

Clarke stepped gingerly across the rocks and sand, careful not to step on anything that looked like it might move on its own.  She stopped near Octavia, but not too close.  “I think we should wait too.”

“Glad to have your approval,” said the other girl.

Shrugging, Clarke picked up a rock of her own, and tried to skip it.  It sunk, with a woeful plop.  “I also wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for missing you at Polis.  I was coming, you know, but I waited a little too long, and then...then everything fell apart, and I couldn’t.  There was no way to let you know.”

Standing up to her full height, Octavia glanced at Clarke.  “Is that when Lexa died? There was a commotion by the gate when we were leaving, like they didn’t want people entering the city.”

Blinking furiously, Clarke nodded.  Octavia knelt and picked up another rock.  She tilted her palm so Clarke could see her choice: a flat stone, smooth, a few centimeters across.  Then she bent her legs, focused on some point out on the water, and threw.  It bounced six times before disappearing.

“Did Lincoln ever tell you how he met Luna?"  Clarke asked at last.  “If we know something about her, it might help us make a good impression.”

Octavia sniffed, wiping at her eye.  “I don’t know much about her."  Clarke waited, and eventually she continued.  “Lincoln used to say that she helped others, and she helped him.  When he was young, he…” trailing off, Octavia took a deep breath.  Blinking through wet eyes, she sat on a boulder, still pointedly watching the ocean.  With trepidation, Clarke moved to sit next to her.  The rock underneath them dry enough but its chill seeped up through their clothes.

“When he was young,” repeated Octavia, “he ran away.  He got as far as the sea, where Luna’s people found him.  They let him stay for almost month before his father came with a war party to retrieve him.  Luna negotiated, Lincoln was beaten for disobeying, the war party went home, and no one died.”

“She sounds like a good leader.”

Nodding, her voice choked up, but the more she spoke, the more the words came.  “Lincoln said they offered to hide him, so he didn’t have to go back.  Luna was ready to give him sanctuary.  But his father was a warrior and he knew they’d keep looking for him.  He didn’t want any of the Luna’s people to die because of his cowardice, so he showed himself, and went home.”

Delicately, Clarke reached out her hand to touch the other girl’s shoulder.  The soft contact was too much though, and Octavia burst into a flood of tears.  

“He was always doing that,” she sobbed.  “He w-was always p-putting himself between people and v-violence.  He knelt r-right there in the dirt and—”

Clarke wrapped her arms around Octavia, pushing their heads together and banding her arm across the crying girl’s shoulders.  Octavia sank into the gesture, and her whole body shook with the ferocious release.  Clarke felt her own tears spill out, a little quieter, as she thought of Lexa’s green eyes blown wide when the bullet hit.  Both girls huddled through their sobs, mourning a thousand moments they would never have again.  They remained that way for a while, heads tucked together while a salt breeze buffeted their backs.  

Eventually Clarke pulled away, and as soon as her grip relaxed Octavia was on her feet, combing her fingers through the ends of her hair and staring at the sand.

“You should take the radios,” she said, before Clarke could speak.  “When you and Bellamy check the rover.  If Luna comes, we need to be in contact.”

“We will,” Clarke agreed, rising.  She wiped her hands on her coat, a little thrown by the abrupt change.  When it was clear Octavia had nothing more to say, Clarke gave her one last look, then turned and started back.

When she returned to the fire and accepted the handheld walkie from a sulking Jasper, she found Bellamy already waiting at the tree line, above the rock circle.  Clarke nodded at him, and they moved together into the forest.  

With his rifle braced in front of him, Bellamy walked slightly ahead.  She could observe him freely from here: the tight pull of his shoulder line, the cut of his jaw when he glanced back to check on her.  They spoke little as the walked..  With the exception of pointing out suspicious shadows in the underbrush, words were a liability.  It was almost a half hour to the rover, and when the downed tree and haggard black vehicle were finally in sight, they stopped to assess.

Glancing at her, Bellamy clicked on the radio at his belt, then the small attachment at his jacket collar.  “I’ll circle around,” he murmured into the piece, and the radio on Clarke’s own belt hummed with the signal.  “Got your gun?”

“Go,” she said, drawing the pistol he’d given to her in Arkadia.  “I got you.”

They moved through the wood with precise teamwork, constantly aware of one another’s position as they scouted the area around the jeep for any sign of human contact.  When it was clear, they climbed into the rover and Bellamy began flipping controls in a practiced pattern of click, click, switch, pull.  The radar display lit up with a map of the area where the trees formed a cluster of green dots around their central red blip.

“The solar panels usually have enough charge for a patrol run,” Bellamy told her as he checked the power gauge, “But we drained it pretty low yesterday.”

“What're you thinking?”

He glanced her way, brown eyes standing out brightly behind the dark, almost black curls that fell over his vision these days.  “The sun’s out.  The meter’s up to half already, but we should give it another two hours before we have to hide the exterior with branches and dirt.”

Clarke peered out the window to the sun, peeking from the clouds for a rare visit.  Sunshine dappled through the upper branches of the forest, but it was still enough to turn their little indicator light to a solid blue for charging.  “You know I like practical thinking,” she said wanly, and pressed the side button on her handheld.  “Jasper, this is Clarke.  We’re gonna charge the rover here for a while.  Keep your radio on.”

 _“Copy that,”_ crackled the answer.   _“Arkadia protocol says to check in every hour.  Don’t be late."_  There was a pause, then another click. _“Don’t die.”_

“We’ll do our best,” she promised, then set the radio on the dashboard.  In the driver’s seat, Bellamy’s eyebrows rose almost up to his hairline.  “What?”

“Didn’t realize Jasper actually memorized any of the protocols,” he shrugged.  Taken by a thought, he gave her a measuring once-over, then gestured to the dash.  “While we’re here, have you two been properly introduced?”

“You mean, to the car?”

“Yeah,” he smirked.  “Gotta treat her right, learn what she likes.”

Clark snorted, Bellamy’s smile got bigger, and they filled the first hour that way— her quizzing him on all the electronic features of the vehicle, and Bellamy either explaining the concept or demonstrating where he could.  She’d been good with the medical database systems on the Ark, and the rovers were designed close to the same period as the space stations, so the technology was all familiar, albeit with a different purpose.  It was nice to have time with Bellamy; they hadn’t been so alone and easy with one another in months.  He grinned when she’d deduce a function before he even got to it, and she told him about some of the old tech she found and traded for supplies during her months alone.

They were lounging in the car seats, most of the displays powered down to charge, when she cracked a joke about him teaching her to drive properly at some point.  Bellamy’s face lit up for a moment and he sat straighter, only to pause, consider, and close his mouth.  He glanced out the windshield to the trees, but his attention was far away.

“What is it?"  Clarke asked, leaning toward him.  Bellamy’s hand was between the seats, just a heartbeat from hers, and placing her own above it would be so easy.  This whole afternoon had been easy, comfortable—wonderful, in a way that felt almost unfair.  Clarke closed her hand around her armrest instead, and tried to catch his eye.  “You can tell me, Bellamy.  If you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

As she waited, his eyes slipped shut, and he took a deep, barrel-chested breath.  He let it out in a whoosh, and slumped against the seat.  Finally, his gaze slid over to the passenger side, and he told her about Gina.

“We met when she taught volunteers in the guard to drive.  Raven insisted on joining, and it’s a good thing because she ended up the best driver of the group.  Gina spent a training course operating machinery on the Ark, forklifts and stuff, so they all figured she could teach us how to drive."  Bellamy trailed off, and Clarke watched him as he watched the sunlight in the trees.  

“She liked to have her hands in everything: there was nothing she didn’t want to learn."  The corner of his mouth ticked up.  “She was crap at follow-through, though.  Every day was a new project, and she had so much talent, but then the thing she wanted to try the next day was just as exciting."  He sighed.  “I wanted extra practice on one of the trucks, so we went out together one afternoon.  And it was...  it was such a relief, to be doing something completely different, you know?”

She understood the balm of different; she’d chased it for three months, and these last three weeks had been a whole other kind of different again.  She’d chosen pain and loneliness the first time she left, then she’d tried to escape into a dream of peace.  Clarke wasn’t ready to share that story yet—not when it was so inextricable from the man beside her now—but she could relate, even so.

“You might already know this,” he told her, voice rough, “but she was in Mount Weather when it blew.  I said goodbye and I left—because I fucking _trusted_ Echo, and then—”

Bellamy halted, and when he blinked a tear escaped to trail on his cheek.  With her heart feeling like a stone in her chest, Clarke reached out and laid her hand on top of his.  Bellamy surprised her by immediately twisting their palms together, cupping her fingers in his own.  The hesitation that she’d be afraid to even admit would break her heart was wholly absent from his touch.  He squeezed her hand, and Clarke squeezed back.

At last, Bellamy whispered, “I was so certain with Pike.  But it’s all mixed around in my head now, and I can’t help but think that that’s the most fucked up part.  That I might never be able to trust myself.  That I don’t even trust myself now.”

In the silence, Clarke ran all the words through her mind, until it was clear that the only thing she had to give him was what she knew for sure in her heart.  “I trust you,” she told him, linking their fingers together.  Bellamy’s fingers, longer and darker, bent in rough tandem with her own, till she could feel every place where gun callous met spear.

He raised his eyes, meeting her stare as she said, “That hasn’t changed."  

They held eye contact, and Clarke inhaled, offering a watery smile.  “And…I have a story too, Bellamy.  I can’t tell you right now, but..."  He ran his thumb on the back of her hand—as he’d done weeks ago, in the middle of their angriest moment together.

As he’d done days ago, in the lantern light outside the trading post.

“But I want to tell you one day,” she finished.  “I know that I do.”

“I’ll wait,” he said quietly, and Clarke smiled through a sniffle, wiping at her face with her other hand.

“I know.”

Their palms were still linked, their eyes still locked in this strange focus, when the handheld radio clicked and popped on the dashboard.  A fuzzy voice trickled out, boredom dripping from every syllable.

_“Clarke, Bellamy, this is Jasper.  Come in, come in, coooommmme iiiiiinnnnnn.  If, you know, you’re alive.”_

She straightened, snorting back a sniffle and grabbing up the walkie in both hands.  Beside her, Bellamy reclined back on his seat.  “This is Clarke,” she reported.

_“You’re late.”_

Pushing down on the mic button, she said, “I hear you Jasper.  We’re fine.  We’ll call next time, I promise.”

“Tell him we’re gonna hide the rover,” suggested Bellamy.  “In case he has any last minute requests.”

Clearing her throat, she said, “We’re gonna move the rover soon, and bring back some food and gear.  We’ll stow the rest.  If you think of anything special, call us.”

 _“Oh, I’ll think of something,”_ Jasper’s voice assured her, then clicked out. _“Later.”_

“Later,” repeated Clarke.  Breathing deep, she affixed the radio to her belt where it’d began that morning.  “Ready to get outta here?”

“Definitely,” agreed Bellamy, and he flipped the engine switch.  

The site they picked for the rover took some effort to get to, as it was well off the open pathways that had once been campsite roads a century ago.  Clarke wasn’t sure it was worth it if Luna never came and they had to dig it out tomorrow, but the work did help pass the time.  They parked it and Bellamy began pulling out gear while Clarke gathered branches and forest debris to make the car look abandoned and unused.  When she was finished draping the front and and the top of the vehicle in sufficient camouflage, she made her way around to the back to see Bellamy lashing together two small bed pads in tight rolls under one of the packs  He grabbed a compass and zipped it inside as well, just as the radio he’d put to one side buzzed to life.

_“Paging room service.”_

“This is Bellamy,” he said with an eye roll.  “What’s is it?”

_“This is Beach Team Primo.  I assume you’re gonna bring us food and something to sleep on.”_

“If you keep track of my sister, I’ll even bring some for you."  

 _“Like I’d ever get between the two of you these days, no thanks,”_ said the radio voice.   _“Short story is we need you to grab the Gieger counter from Octavia’s stuff, and bring it with you when you come back.”_

Puzzled, Clarke and Bellamy shared a glance.  “What for?"  he asked.

 _“Octavia says we need a gift for Luna,”_ Jasper replied.   _“And it’s easy to operate.  I guess they could use it for salvage? We need something to make a good impression.”_

Bellamy’s face had darkened like a stormcloud, so Clarke plucked the radio out of his hand and said, “We’ll get it.  See you in a few.”

Their friend’s idle _“Roger that,”_ was barely over before Bellamy burst out,“What the hell's she thinking? Gieger counters don’t grow on trees, and who knows how many toxic sites there are around here.  We could be walking into anything.”

“Does it matter?"  asked Clarke.  “Let Luna have it, if it means she’ll hear us out."  It was worth it, to stop the war, and to stop ALIE.  It was worth it to save her mother, who’d stood so calmly beside a firing line as Arkadia shrank into the distance behind Jasper’s desperate flight.

Jaw set, Clarke began rifling through the extra gear Octavia had set aside, finally pulling out a green metal device, about the size of a pine cone.  It settled into her hand, and when she flicked the side switch it emitted a single low beep, then went quiet.  Clarke made a face at it, then stuffed both it and the accompanying crumbled paper of instructions into her coat pocket.  She poked around a little more, then dropped her hands to her sides, sighing.

Grateful to be distracted from whatever new internal spiral the discussion of sister had left him in, Bellamy eyed her.  “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” answered Clarke.  “I was just hoping someone had packed binoculars, but there aren’t any here.”

“They’d definitely be useful.  But I’m guessing you want ‘em for more than just sighting the enemy footsoldiers.”

Clarke bit her bottom lip, dropping her eyes almost shyly.  After a self-conscious pause she admitted, “I was hoping to watch the sunrise.”

Brown gaze steady on her, Bellamy waited for the rest, and the patience in his regard filled her with sudden awareness, then warmth.  She added, “Since we’re going to be here anyway for another day...I thought I’d use the binoculars and see it.  The sun rises in the East, right? I know we’re only at an inlet, not the open ocean, but still.”

“That sounds good,” replied Bellamy, quiet.  “I’d like to see that too.”

“Yeah,” she said, then turned sharply back to their stuff, looking busy.  “Is this everything?"  

They secured the last of their supplies, locked and chained the rear doors, then set off toward the main trail.  Both of them wore laden backpacks, and Clarke carried an extra bundle while Bellamy kept his hands free for the rifle.  From their new spot it was a shorter walk back to the beach, but they madeslow progress with the added weight, and neither was in a hurry to return anyway.  Even with the sun trapped behind clouds again, the trees were tall and rich around them, and the air smelled finer without the grease and smoke of Arkadia.  

Out here, computer programs and politics seemed so far way, and the woods so peaceful, that the wild animal crashing out from a bramble took them both by sudden, violent surprise.  In a few milliseconds Clarke’s entire world shifted, and someone shouted as a wash of pain enveloped her.  

The pig hit Clarke dead on, knocking her in the torso with what felt like a rocket engine.  It squealed in misplaced rage, kicking out with its hooves as it turned, jumping past her prone form to vanish into the woods.  A shot rang out, but Clarke couldn’t focus because her whole body felt numb with pain.  Her head spun and she tried to turn over to check herself, but all the air had been ripped from her lungs.  It could’ve been eons or just seconds, but one instant she was alone on the forest floor and the next Bellamy was there.

“No, no, no,” he was saying, hands running over her shoulders, her back.  She thought he heard him crying, but that didn’t make any sense.  Clarke wasn’t going to die here, not from some piece of dinner that got ambitious.  

“Bella—” she tried to say, but her throat was dry, and the word barely gasped out.

“Where is it?"  she heard his voice, desperate and too loud.  He was going to attract predators if he wasn’t careful.  “I don’t see the blood!  God, Clarke, tell me.  Show me, please.  Where’d it get you?”

He turned her onto her back and ran his hands across her stomach, then the sides of her legs, pushing at the fabric beneath her coat, and through her stunned haze Clarke almost laughed.  But Bellamy’s eyes were wide and broken above her, his face transformed with terror.  Gingerly, she raised herself up enough to touch his arm, and said his name again.  Her breath had begun to return and she could form real words this time.

“It’s okay,” she groaned.  “Bellamy, s’okay.”

He wavered above her, his whole frame quaking.  “Fuck, Clarke.  The boar—”

“No tusks,” she managed.  With effort, she leaned up to sit beside him.  “I’m just...winded.”

Bellamy’s hands went instantly to her face, cupping her cheeks as he stared into her eyes, checking the dilation.  Whatever he found, it made his shoulders drop and his breath explode.  Hands still on her cheeks, he seemed to collapse forward until their foreheads touched.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said again, his brow a warm pinprick against her own, his hands enveloping Clarke’s senses.  “Clarke, I can’t…”

Tentative, she covered his hand on her cheek with one of her own.  She felt the ridges of his knuckles and instead of making him draw them back, she pressed warmly into the feeling.  Bellamy inhaled, his face so close to her own that she could feel every whisper of his breathing between them.  Her other hand found his waist, and she clutched at his shirt while she tried to get her bearings.  Under the fabric, the hard, muscled lines of him grounded her.

Their eyes rose at the same time, and they hung forever in that silence.  Her universe had shrunk to this tiny space between her gaze and his, between her mouth and his.  Clarke twisted her fingers under his shirt, grazing the hot skin of his stomach.  Bellamy’s thumb drifted from her cheek to brush, infintessimally, the corner of her lips.  Her mouth dropped open, and her eyelids felt heavy.  

With incalcuable gentleness, he ran his thumb across her lower lip.  Clarke shuddered, her eyes closing.  Then, in the darkness, she felt his lips press to her forehead.  He stayed there, kissing the place just below her hairline, until Clarke squeezed his hand with her own.  Retreating, his palms dropped from her cheeks and Bellamy stood, one hand out to help her up.  

Wincing, Clarke stretched, pushing at delicate ribs until her sore spots were catalogued, then searching around her bag for the water canteen.  In a momentary rush she checked that the AI chip was still intact, relieved to see its case had protected it well.  When she was ready, she gave Bellamy a nod and a clipped smile.  He passed her the smaller bundle and the gun, then took the second heavy pack to carry.  Still looking a bit spooked, Bellamy led them both the rest of the way through the trees.  It seemed as if all the words had been sucked from the air around them, leaving a vaccum that nature tried its best to fill with forest sounds.  They didn’t discuss the pig, or the way Bellamy’s voice had cracked when he asked her where the blood was.

When they made it to the little beach, Octavia was tending the signal flame.  She let it burn orange for stretches before flashing a series of green bursts, then back to orange again.  Jasper was a ways out by the rocks, looking for something or other in the distance.  Octavia acknowledged them with only a grunt, but she did take the pack and begin sorting out rations.  The horizon was gray again, the afternoon sun inching lower into the mountains, and Clarke sat down gingerly on a log to watch the fire.  Bellamy sat beside her, twisting a length of pine between his fingers.

For the remainder of their evening everyone was left to their own devices.  Bellamy took over as lookout, and Jasper killed time by pacing up and down the tree line, claiming he was checking for signs of Trikru, Azgeda, or chipped minions.  When it was dark and they agreed to bed down for what sleep they could, Clarke volunteered for first watch.  

Jasper and Bellamy laid out their thin, compact sleeping pads on two sides of the fire, Octavia taking the third, opposite to her brother.  Clarke sat on the low rock that’d become the designated spot for the signal keeper, her stare fixed on the dark water of the inlet.  After a while the rustle of turning, unsettled bodies gave way to sleep and relative quiet.  While her friends rested, she tried to pick apart the sounds of nature: waves rising, crashing, and retreating.  Birds and insects, the odd shuffle of an animal in the brush.   

Above it all, the wind blew a hollow song over the water, circling Clarke in an unforgiving embrace before sweeping up to the sky.  She tilted her head to take in the Milky Way, painted across the pallet of stars like a shining trail toward a home out of reach.  Clarke held her palms out to the fire’s warmth, and thought again of her mother, lost in the City of Light.  She curled her fingers into the heat, and wondered if they’d make it in time.  

When Jasper tapped her shoulder a couple hours later, Clarke nodded and stood.  Her muscled creaked and she stretched her neck before setting up her own bed.  She picked a place close to the fire and adjacent to Bellamy, their heads a few feet apart. Huddling into her blanket, she indulged in watching him while her body settled for rest.  He was difficult to see, mostly a mop of hair and a pile of limbs under his blanket, but if Clarke squinted she could make out pieces: his square chin; the sharp, elegant line of jaw.

She was almost taken out by a boar today, but what if it’d been him? The man beside her had come close to death before her eyes too many times already.  In her dreams sometimes she could still see Roan crouched over his body, sword bloody with a callous, offhanded execution.  Like Bellamy was some mess to clean up, one more petty hindrance to the mission at hand.  Seeing Bellamy that day had been a miracle turned nightmare, and ever since Clarke hadn't wanted to face what it meant.

He'd come for her when she needed help, and Clarke knew that no matter how angry they became with each other, in the end he’d always come.  He would always try.  It had been too much to think about in Polis, too wild and heavy in her heart, but now Bellamy was in front of her and Clarke couldn't forget the sensation of his lips on her forehead, his hands on her cheeks.  When he slid his thumb across her lip it felt like a tectonic shift in everything she knew about him.

In the corner of her vision, a glimmer of the campfire flickered orange to green.  The smell of pine and charcoal wrapped her mind in a gentle fog, and the toll of the hour encroached on her at last.  Her eyes drifted shut, and the sight of Bellamy safe at rest carried her to morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to tumblr user [lee-face](http://lee-face.tumblr.com) who made this [AMAZEBALLS FANART of chapter 2](http://lee-face.tumblr.com/post/144925229517/bellamys-hands-went-instantly-to-her-face). It moved me and then it made me laugh. I'm so flattered and honored you thought to do fanart of my fic!


	3. Day 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No,” she replied, fixing her gaze on him again. Before her, Bellamy’s face was a picture of broken symmetry: old wounds and new, any pride long since eclipsed by regret. His mouth hung half open, a question on the edge of his breath, and she repeated her words because they were true: “I _need_ you to be safe, Bellamy.” 
> 
> // Day 3: grief, love, and the Boat People arrive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So assume I have no idea how a Geiger counter works and I’m just winging it based on those extremely accurate spy films like “Get Smart”. 
> 
> Thank you to [storyskein](http://archiveofourown.org/users/storyskein/pseuds/storyskein), my heroic late night last minute beta reader. Check out her fic, she's great!

  
_Day 3_

 

A gentle touch to her shoulder pulled Clarke out of a dream, and her whole body jerked wire tight before she recognized Bellamy, hovering above her.  His curls fell into his eyes as he looked down, and he raised one finger to his lips.  Eyebrows pulling together, Clarke sat up and looked for the threat, but their party remained alone on the beach.  From the sky to the ground, the world around them seem washed in the same dark gray tinge.  The tide lapped at the sand in a steady dirge.  There was light enough to see, but only if Clarke squinted hard enough, and most of that was from the low-burning embers of the fire.

“Sit up,” murmured Bellamy, patting her on the shoulder.  He slid his hand down her arm to grip her fingers in a brief squeeze.  “Bring your blanket, I wanna show you something.”

Mouth cotton-dry from sleep, Clarke nodded and pulled herself up, shuffling around for her canteen.  When it floated before her eyes, dangling from the end of a long jacketed arm, she glanced up to Bellamy’s light smirk.  Clarke smiled a little and reached to take it from him, only to gape when he pulled it backward, wiggling it just out of reach.

Her smile dropped instantly to a scowl, but Bellamy just raised his eyebrows.  Clarke sent him a dirty look and bent to grab her blanket.  She rolled it arm over arm, sending him small, quick looks over her shoulder.  When she stood again, Bellamy unscrewed the canteen and handed it to her, still infuriatingly smug in the shared silence.

Without another word exchanged, he gestured her to follow him, and they trod up the beach together.  Once they were a few hundred feet from the fire, Clarke looked back in concern, but it still burned behind them, orange and bright.  A small breeze wafted from the water, chilling her into shivers, and suddenly she was bored with this game.

“Where are we going?”

“Here,” he replied, just as they reached a pile of rocks lumbering above the sand.  In the dim light she watched him toss his own blanket up about fifteen feet to the highest part.  Then Bellamy glanced at her, tipped his chin in a challenge, and started to climb.

“That’s not—” she began and abruptly sighed.  Bellamy was already at the top, kneeling with his hand outstretched and his grinning teeth a streak of white among the gray.

“Get your ass up here, Clarke.”

All things in her life so far considered, it wasn’t that high.  He’d chosen the clearest route, visible if she picked her way carefully enough.  The boulders were far enough up the beach to be dry, and she’d jumped from higher places.  Summoning her gumption, Clarke tossed her bundled blanket up to him, then braced her feet on the lowest rock.  In just seconds she was up, a little breathless and smiling at the unexpected ease of it.

“Hey,” greeted Bellamy, pride in his gaze as he nodded and waved her closer.  “C’mere.”  

Stepping gingerly, Clarke settled beside him, and it wasn’t until right then that she looked out to sea.  “Oh _wow_ ,” she breathed.

A blanket settled over her shoulders, and she pulled her gaze from the water to Bellamy, hunkered beside her in his own bundle.  “Bellamy, this is…” Words failed her, but he just nudged her with his elbow.

“Watch, or you’ll miss it.”

Looking out, the water stretched out like softly rippling glass, braced on either side by the forested arms of the inlet.  Where the two pieces of land met was a narrow gap of open water: the gateway to their little harbor.  As Clarke watched, her eyes wide and cheeks stinging from the breeze, light speared out from the water to illuminate the clouds.  White tinged with gold, it pushed back the gray and filled the gap of the horizon with color.

Ensnared by the sight before them, Clarke leaned against Bellamy, pulling the blanket higher around her back.  He responded effortlessly, one hand finding hers beneath the blankets, twining them together as he lent his warmth to her.  She let her head fall to his shoulder, and after a moment his own bent down.  His cheek rested on her hair, and Clarke squeezed his hand.  Before them, the sun broke free of the ocean at last, peeking out to see the world anew.   

When it became too bright to look at, they admired the water instead: a wide mirror of a thousand  reflections, broken by wind lines and little flickering movements.

“Bellamy,” Clarke gasped and squeezed his hand.  She leaned forward and pointed to the bristling surface.  “Look at that!”  

As they watched, the space between waves was disrupted by tiny creatures popping up to the surface and sinking back again, quick as a magic trick.  One moment they were there, little silver mouths gasping at the sky, then gone again.  “I think those are—”

“Fish,” Bellamy said, finishing the sentence in time with her.  His brow furrowed as his gaze darted from one bobbing shimmer to the next, always a little too slow to see clearly.  “What’re they doing?”

“I don’t know,” replied Clarke, not quite able to keep the glee from her voice.  “But it’s incredible.”

“It’s odd,” he said, as if this new and immediate mystery completely outstripped the beauty of the moment.  “They don’t need the air.”

Turning her head away from the sunrise spectacle, Clarke smiled at Bellamy’s concentration and bumped their shoulders.  “It’s beautiful,” she said, and the softness in it drew his gaze back to her.  In the morning light, she could see the picture of him: gentle eyes under thick hair, high cheekbones and freckles that grew more prominent with every day under the sun.

“Thank you for showing me,” she whispered.  Bellamy ducked his head, nodded without looking at her, and turned back to the water.  Clarke settled back into her spot against his side, and together they watched the horizon till the sun climbed above the trees.

When their side adventure came to its natural end, they returned to the camp and sorted out duties for the morning. Clarke spent the first half of the day by the fire, taking her shift throwing pine needles into it.  By the first hour her fingers were stained green and rubbed raw, so she took to pre-cutting dozens of sprigs and piling them neatly beside her log.  This left her with nothing to do with her hands.  She paced for a while, drew designs in the damp earth with sticks, and broke the silence by calling Jasper and Bellamy on the radio more often than necessary.

“ _This is Bellamy_ ,” the radio crackled.  No matter how regularly his voice broke the morning silence, Clarke felt the hairs on her arms stand up every time.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“ _It was you the last time, too._ ”

Clarke ignored his dry comment and tossed a pine twig into the fire.  It flared up, then resettled.  “Did you find anything?”

Bellamy was always patient when he picked up, but he kept the calls frustratingly short.  He and Jasper were ostensibly hunting, while Octavia set traps for small game a ways up the beach.  Clarke’s odds were on the traps since automatic weapons were as likely to blow a hole through a deer as strike it.

“ _We found some tracks_ ,” he replied, but there was a hitch in his voice, and a bored Clarke was a nosey Clarke.

“What kind of tracks? What is it, Bellamy?”

For a long minute the radio was dead in her hand, another weight to be carried, then it popped back to life as he said brusquely, “ _Fresh hoof tracks.  Probably the pig from yesterday_.”

Air escaped her, and for an instant, Clarke was not the solitary figure guarding the fire, but prone on the forest floor, clutching her middle.  With a sharp inhale, her hand went to her ribs, feeling for the bruise beneath her clothes.  It was tender.

“ _Clarke?_ ”

Clarke straightened her back, jammed her finger on the radio button.  “That’s good,” she told him.  “Pig on the menu.”

“ _Hopefully_ ,” he agreed, picking up on her tone.  “ _See you in an hour, Clarke_.”

“An hour, Bellamy.”  She peeled her finger from the speaker button by force of will and returned the radio to its little perch on the camp log.

Throwing her shoulders back, Clarke took a deep breath.  Then she knelt by her pack to dig around, pushing through equipment, an extra shirt, and her canteen, until she reached the bottom and gingerly pulled out her sketchbook.  She flipped to the end, not quite ready to face her recent work, and opened up on a blank page of rough yellow paper.  Biting her bottom lip with her teeth, Clarke dropped a fresh clump of needles into the flames, summoned a picture of Lincoln from her memory, and began to draw.

Midday found everyone gathered up again, and Clarke pacing.  Up the length of the log and down again, up and down, eyes always on the water.  Every other pass she’d drop a pine sprig and wait for the chemical reaction.  Green flashed and the fire popped, then she was back to pacing.

“We need to get to Luna,” she said when Octavia joined them at last, two rabbits hanging from her belt.  “If Luna isn’t here, we need to find someone else to ask.  Someone’s got to know how to find her.”

“The signal will work,” Octavia said.  As she spoke, she began untying the string around the rabbit’s feet.  “We’re all worried—”

“ALIE is out there!” Clarke snapped.  She grabbed several twigs at once and threw them into the signal fire.  It leaped a whole foot upward, flaring so bright it was momentarily blinding. To her satisfaction, everyone else jerked backward; Bellamy looked at her with a worried crease in his forehead, Jasper gaped, and Octavia practically hissed.

Clarke pointed West, to the forest, to Arkadia and Polis.  “That monster has my mother and all our friends, and we’re still _sitting_ here!”

“As if you care about our friends!” Octavia lunged forward, her teeth bared, but at the last minute Jasper grabbed her arm and held her back from doing something stupid.

“Whoa, heyyyyyy…” he said, voice going all high.  “I like it when ladies fight but now’s not really the time.”  Octavia shoved him off and crossed her arms over her chest.

Eyes darting between the two girls, Bellamy began, “Clarke has a point—”

“Oh, of course,” interrupted Octavia.

“—and we should talk about this,” he barreled on.  “We need a timetable.”

Octavia looked him, at Clarke, and at Jasper.  “Tomorrow,” she bit out.  “If nothing happens, we move tomorrow.”

Bellamy looked like he wanted to say something, but his sister had already spun away from the group, sitting on the sand and facing the fire.  Clarke watched his jaw twitch and then he looked at Jasper and said, “I still want to find that pig.  You in?”

“Um,” Jasper gulped.  He eyed Octavia, then Clarke, who also had her arms crossed.  “Yeah, meat.  Let’s go.”

They turned back the way they came, heading toward the trees, and Clarke let out her breath.  Tomorrow was too long—another hour was too long—but she knew herself and her own failures well enough by now to recognize that cooperation was the only way to get through this.

Leaving Octavia to guard the fire, she grabbed her bag and marched down the beach to be lookout.  When she found the rocks from that morning, Clarke climbed up them, pack in hand, and settled down to sulk.  She had her sketchbook, and when she got bored of that, she had plans to test out the geiger counter.  Looking out at the water, it took all her concentration not to pick up the radio and check in.  They’d only been out a few minutes; she could wait.

The rest of the day passed similar to the morning: Octavia kept up the signal, Bellamy and Jasper tried their best to capture something more exciting than rabbits, and Clarke took time to herself.  Once, she opened her papers on a sketch of Lexa, and the grief of the last week slammed into her like the seawater that crashed at the base of the rocks.  She cried—for Lexa, for herself, and for the immense weight of this situation.  After several minutes of sobbing, she dragged salt-dried hands over her cheeks, hiccupped, and pressed down on the radio call button.

Jasper picked up, handed the radio to Bellamy, and Clarke listened to his report on the old remnants of a camping lodge about a half mile north.  She smiled at his description of old road signs and hollowed out buildings, wiping her nose and nodding along to the sound of his voice.

Once she got through with weeping, Clarke made her way over to the camp again and, as discreetly as she could, tucked a folded paper into Octavia’s gear bag.  She sat by the fire for a while, neither girl speaking, until Clarke excused herself to go into the woods.  She’d lost pretty much all her body shyness when she lived on her own, but she didn’t feel like hearing any wise-cracks about it if she peed on the beach.

When she made her way back, Octavia was waiting.  She stood with her back to the fire, a piece of yellowed paper in her hands, and she met Clarke’s gaze with a tear running down her cheek.

“Thank you for this.”

Clarke’s eyes stung as well, but she blinked it back when she nodded.  She took a deep breath.  “I hope it doesn’t make it worse?”

“No, it’s good.  I want it.”  Folding it back into a square, Octavia tucked the drawing safely into Lincoln’s journal.

“I wish I’d had just a little more time,” she said, eyes raising to meet Clarke’s.  “There were so many times we argued when we could have been holding each other.  I want those moments back, you know?”

With a feeling like acid climbing up her throat, Clarke had a sudden, visceral memory: Octavia, hanging by handcuffs in a red haze.  Raven, Harper, Miller—the last of her friends slipping out of her reach.  In her mind’s eye she saw Bellamy going limp, his eyelashes a dark smear on his cheeks as he slumped forward and lost consciousness.

“I know,” Clarke replied, and tried to tell herself that it was only four days ago.  Four days since her last mistake nearly cost everything.  Her fingers itched for the radio.

“I know,” she repeated, a little softer.

Octavia nodded, looking away from Clarke and back down at her book.  “I meant what I said, about us leaving tomorrow.  We’ll just have to try another way.”

“Thank you, Octavia,” she said, and that was the last of their conversation till the boys returned.

When the two bedraggled hunters shuffled out of the trees a couple hours later, Clarke stood up from her log in a jerk.  Bellamy nodded at her and held up a large furry thing that must weigh twenty pounds.  She nodded in return, and he broke off to go few dozen feet away to clean the kill.  Jasper joined Clarke by their camp gear, in a better mood than she’d seen from him in days.

“Hope you like bobcat.”

“I do,” she said.  “I lived off one for a week.”

Jasper did his fake-nervous head dip; Clarke felt a wave of fondness at the familiar gesture.  “Intense, as usual.”

“We almost got the boar,” he continued.  With his hands in his pockets, rolling back on his heels, Jasper was the picture of casual.  He’d apparently decided she was a better target for small talk than Octavia.  “Bellamy thought she had a litter around here and that’s why she wasn’t completely scared off when you ran into her the first time.”

“You know it was female?” asked Clarke, not particularly invested in the answer.  Her gaze was locked on Bellamy, watching as he leaned over a rock and sliced the cat from neck to base.  His technique looked untrained and sloppy, no good for saving the fur, but it’s wasn’t like they had time to do much besides eat.

“Just a theory,” Jasper replied.  “Hey, Clarke.”

She returned to him.  “Yeah?”

“Bellamy is fine.  ”

Clarke snapped her mouth shut, expression gone stoic.  “None of us are fine.”

Jasper’s retort was equally cool: “Well we go out in pairs for a reason, so how about not wasting the battery next time.  And at least trust us to have his back.”

“I trust you,” said Clarke.  It sounded weak, even to her.  Her eyes darted again to Bellamy, now wrist deep in animal blood, and she added, “I mean...thank you.”

With a nod and a resigned grunt, Jasper left her to her thoughts.

Dinner was pretty good that night, a big step up from dry Arkadian rations.  Octavia worked out a way to wrap and save the rabbit meat, while the four of them finished off the small bobcat.  With a hot meal softening everyone’s tempers, a tentative peace settled over the four companions.  Tomorrow they’d look for signs of other settlements, and a weak plan was better than no plan at all.

Long after the sun was down, when it was close to midnight and her position at the signal fire was turned over to Octavia, Clarke still couldn’t make herself sleep.  Rubbing her neck and shoulders, she stood up from her sleeping pad, stretched, and left to wander the beach again.  Her feet carried her over the rough and pebbly sand until the fire was far enough to be a weak flicker: orange, green, orange, green.  She turned her back to the signal and drew the rescued Geiger counter from her coat pocket.

It lay in her palm: a round, heavy disk with belt latch on the top.  A small square screen read out two rows of numbers, and when Clarke tapped a button the numbers refreshed, then steadied.  One hand held out in front of her, Clarke began to walk.  To a boulder: no change.  To the nearest tree: slight uptick in the CPM reading.  To the remnants of a faded beach sign: return to the previous count.  The longer she held it, the surface was warmed by her hands, and the steady, reliable beeps reminded Clarke of the heart monitors in her mother’s Alpha Station clinic, so many years ago.

Head down, concentration on the shifting readout, she heard him approach before she saw him.  His boots shuffled and crunched on the damp sand, blending in with the washing sounds of the tide.  “Figured out how to use that yet?”

“I think so,” she replied, pointing it at a piece of driftwood.

Compared to the other night when they’d been on the beach together, Bellamy’s tone was open, even curious.  “Any interesting results?”

With her focus still on her hands, Clarke turned fully toward him, and advanced at a measured pace.  Every time she tapped the button the counter emitted a beep, and the CMP shifted up and down by a few points as she moved.  Step by step, she approached, and he waited.  At last she reached him, walking until her outstretched hand, device and all, softly tapped him in the front of his jacket.

She halted there, eyes downcast, and Bellamy drew in a breath.  She tapped the readout button.

“So Doc,” asked Bellamy after the single, low beep faded away.  There was barely a foot between them.  “How bad is it?”

Clarke’s fingers clutched the counter, both her hands almost obscuring the little screen.  The tip of the oval still brushed his jacket, which meant her knuckles touched his jacket too.  “You...are safe.”

In front of her, Bellamy curled in on himself, nearly looming over her, as if to shelter the two of them with just his physical form.  After an eon, Clarke raised her gaze to meet his.  In the moonlight and the shadows, his face was stricken.  “Am I?”

“Yes,” she said.  Leaning closer, she whispered, “I need you to be safe.”

With incredible gentleness, Bellamy brought his hands to envelope hers.  One by one, he nudged her fingers off the Geiger counter until she let it slip, like a beating heart, into his hands.  His thumb brushed the off switch, and it let out a desultory chirp before going inert.  With one hand still cupping both of Clarke’s, he slid the device into her side pocket.  The whole time, she never moved, and she wondered if she’d even breathed.

He pushed a lock of her hair over her ear and squeezed her hands.  “It’s okay, Clarke.  We’ll do this.”

“No,” she replied, fixing her gaze on him again.  Before her, Bellamy’s face was a picture of broken symmetry: old wounds and new, any pride long since eclipsed by regret.  His mouth hung half open, a question on the edge of his breath, and she repeated her words because they were true: “I _need_ you to be safe, Bellamy.”

He inhaled sharply, his eyes roving over her face for the catch—for some alternate meaning than the obvious, than the one neither of them had ever spoken aloud—so Clarke took the last step forward and kissed him.

She kept her right hand firmly locked with his, entwined together at their sides, but her left wound into his hair and pulled him down the final distance.  Bellamy folded into her; there was no other word for it.  One moment he was still, and the next his whole body changed.  His hand found her lower back, his head tucked down to be closer to her, and his lips were hot against her own.  Clarke tilted her head opposite to his, and she dove heart first into this new, desperate kind of joy.

Too many moments had slipped by them in the past—Clarke was done with somedays and what-ifs.  Kissing Bellamy was warm and wonderful.  It was quiet and it was hungry and it was like so many conversations they’d already had: push and pull.  Trust and challenge.  Everything that had laid between them in the past came rushing to the forefront, because there was no going back after this.  She’d never be able to see his mouth without remembering it against hers.  She’d never be able to touch his shoulder again without wanting to curl her hand in his hair the way she did now.

At their side, Bellamy’s fingers squeezed hers if he’d never let them go.  His other hand climbed her back, pulling her up against him ’til their belt buckles clinked and her breasts pressed into his chest.  When they parted for the space of a breath, he gasped her name like an invocation: “Clarke.”

Wonder of wonders, all she wanted to do right then was smile.  “Bellam—”

Pain smashed into Clarke, a blinding white wave against her skull, and she reeled.  Before she could shout or speak a hand covered her mouth and a bag dropped over her eyes.  Bellamy was ripped out of her arms, his fingers yanked away from her panicked grip, and all of Clarke’s deepest nightmares were erupting at once, because when she tried to scream, there was nothing.

“Fight and you both die,” a voice hissed in her ear.  “Be silent, and you might live.”

Clarke went limp, and waited for it to end.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more update folks! Expect it later today. If you haven't done any nominations for the @bellarkefanfictionawards on tumblr yet, please consider nominating this fic! If you enjoyed it, of course. :D 
> 
> Comment and kudos are always welcome and treasured. They keep me alive, tbh.


	4. Day 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one, the warriors yanked the hoods off Clarke and Bellamy, shoving them to their knees side by side. Clarke’s shoulders sagged with relief to see him, but there’d be no chance to do anything unless Octavia could talk fast. After three days and a night, the Boat People had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done! Finally, I have finished a complete fic. It's been years since I managed that, you have no idea. I really hope you like the conclusion! If you do, please kudos and comment to let me know. It brings me joy and feeds my writing monster.
> 
> Special thanks to tumblr user [lee-face](http://lee-face.tumblr.com) who made this [AMAZEBALLS FANART of chapter 2](http://lee-face.tumblr.com/post/144925229517/bellamys-hands-went-instantly-to-her-face). I'm so flattered and honored you thought to do fanart of my fic, and I loved it. Especially the piglet.

_Day 4_

 

In the darkness of the hood, Clarke took short, regular breaths and tried to get her bearings. Her hands were bound, and the Grounders left her face down on the rocky beach for a while, someone’s body weight pressing her down. With a gag cinched across her mouth, she couldn’t shout for Bellamy, but when she heard a grunting struggle and then some Trigedasleng swearing, her body relaxed a fraction. He was still here, still with her on the beach, and now they just had to figure out what had gone wrong.

It was impossible to know how long it was before their attackers got them up and walking again. Without the ability to see events unfolding, time was hard to pin down. Eventually, rough male hands yanked Clarke up by her arms, and she was marched along the rocky shore. From the complaints of the warriors, Bellamy shuffled beside her, docile at last. Clarke hoped it hadn’t hurt too badly to make him so.

After a few minutes of walking, Clarke saw a hint of light through the fabric of her hood. At the same time, their captors began calling out, weapons raising, and Octavia’s voice cut through the night. “No, no! It’s okay.”

As one, the warriors yanked the hoods off Clarke and Bellamy, shoving them to their knees side by side. Clarke’s shoulders sagged with relief to see him, but there’d be no chance to do anything unless Octavia could talk fast. After three days and a night, the Boat People had arrived.

“Who are you?” spat the unit leader. He was tall and bald, with an unfamiliar tattoo across his cheekbone. “Why did you signal?”

Octavia, thankfully unbound still, raised her hands in a show of openness. “I am Oktavia of Skaikru, and I seek safe passage.”

He scowled. “Skaikru, bringers of death. Why should we give you safe passage?”

Clarke’s gaze jumped from Octavia to Jasper, who looked like a flight risk—then to the warriors with looming crossbows. Beside her, Bellamy straightened as best he could on his knees, eyes on his sister.

“Lincoln,” Octavia pronounced. There was pride in her voice, any grief tucked away and private. “He sent us.”

Even in death, his name invoked respect, and Clarke missed him all over again. How much better it would have been to meet these people as allies. The unit leader gestured, and she barely understood the command to remove their gags and free their hands. In a moment she was up, rubbing her wrists and pulling the gag out of her mouth. Her cheeks were bruised and her breath tasted like saltwater.

“What's going on?” hissed Bellamy.

“I don't know,” his sister replied tersely, then they all watched as the leader pulled a vial cloudy gray liquid from his travel gear. He held it out, and Octavia took it.

“What is that?” asked Clarke.

“Safe passage,” the Grounder said, giving one to each of them.

Jasper accepted his vial like it would bite if he moved his hand too quickly. “What... does it do?”

Without waiting for an answer, Octavia unscrewed the lid and swallowed the drug.

Bellamy jerked beside her, his hand partially up in a response ingrained in him since childhood. “Octavia, wait!”

“I trust Lincoln,” she said with a shake of her head.

“If only she drinks, only she goes,” commanded the warrior.

The whole thing was too dangerous, too easy, but Jasper took Octavia’s lead before they even had a chance to talk it over. “See you on the other side,” he offered and downed the vial’s contents. At the same time, Octavia teetered and dropped full-bodied into the sand.

Bellamy lunged forward, his little sister’s nickname on his lips and his whole face distraught. One of the warriors shoved him back, holding him away from her body, just as Jasper realized what was in store for him.

“Oh, crap.” Jasper wavered, dropped to his knees, then to his side. “Oh, God,” he moaned, and fell unconscious.

Stare unwavering, the Floukru leader addressed them: “Last chance.”

There was nothing left for it now but to trust Octavia and Lincoln. Clarke turned to Bellamy, fighting to keep the fear out of her expression. He looked at the vial like it was poison and he looked at her like she could, still, somehow, save them. Clarke longed to kiss away that anxiety, but time was up. Their private little world by the sea was no more.

“Together?” she asked.

Bellamy nodded, and as one, they unscrewed the caps and drank. By unspoken agreement, they sat down on the sand, side by side. Clarke’s vision began to swim almost as soon as she swallowed, and the light from the campfire bucked and swayed. As if from a great distance, someone called to signal the boats, but their voice was drowned by a ringing in her ears. She felt the back of her skull hit the sand and caught a final glimpse of Bellamy.

He watched her, his mouth falling open as if to call her name, but Clarke’s attention slid past him, to the stars and the deep black sky above the harbor. All alone, she followed the Milky Way up, up, up into eternity.

 

*

 

When Clarke woke again it was to sunlight beating down her eyelids. She blinked, gasping air over a parched throat. Beneath her was old metal, cool and rotting from salt decay; when she rolled over to sit, the pads of her fingers dragged streaks in the orange rust. Light stabbed through holes in the gray walls, spearing the small dimensions of their prison.

“My swords are gone,” moaned Octavia from off to her right.

Jasper was standing up as well. He shuffled his hands over his jacket, then his bags. “The guns too.”

Still trying to find her bearings, she expected to hear Bellamy’s voice. When Clarke spotted his crumpled form on the other end of the container, unmoving, she gasped. With a lurch, she was on her feet and staggering toward him.

“Bellamy,” she croaked, and rolled him onto his back. He was heavy and his body resisted, but she did it. A vein of cold traveled up Clarke’s insides, wrapping around her chest as she tried to shake him. His head lolled to one side, his cheek cool under her palm. She tried again: “Bellamy?”

No change. The vein around her heart tightened into a wire, and Clarke felt herself start to panic.

“No, no, please. Please wake up Bellamy, please.”

“What’s going on?” Octavia demanded. “Is he okay?”

“Clarke?” said Jasper. She ignored them both.

Beneath her questing fingers, Bellamy’s cheeks were soft despite his scabs and bruises. Clarke ran a shaking hand over his nose and his lips, sliding her thumb across his chin. How had she kissed him here, just hours ago? How could she do it, and then watch as he drank poison? That vial could be killing him right now, a natural allergy or a drug he was never meant to wake from.

A sob wrenched through her whole body as she pulled his head into her lap.

“Come on Bellamy, you have to wake up,” she begged. “I won’t let this happen to you too. I can’t. Please, please wake up.”

“Clarke?” whispered Octavia. Hand out, she approached with visible dread. Clarke met her gaze and tried to think of something she could say. Something clinical and detached. Something that didn’t end with her heart breaking on the spot.

“Octavia, I—”

Below her, Bellamy’s shoulders spasmed, and he jerked his head to the side. In an instant Clarke’s hands found his cheeks, cupping them as his eyes blinked open. A small whimper escaped her, and she bent to press their foreheads together.

“I’m here,” he murmured, his voice rough with the dregs of unwelcome sleep. Clarke felt his hand pat her cautiously on the back, but her eyes were closed and she was basically crying on him. “It’s okay, Clarke. S’okay.”

He tried to sit up, but as soon as he was halfway upright Clarke flung her arms around him and tucked her face into his collar. Bellamy reciprocated, enfolding her and pressing his cheek to her hair. He let them sit like that for a minute—two bodies crouched together on the rusty metal floor of a shipping container—until Clarke was all cried out.

She pushed away from him at last, wiping her eyes, and said quietly, “Now I know how you felt the other day.”

Bellamy tilted his head, examining her face. Tears had surely left streaks down her cheeks, and she probably looked like the mess she was inside.

“You do?”

“Yeah Bellamy,” said Clarke. Her hand found his and squeezed it. “I do.”

“Alright,” he replied at last. His tone was small, laced with wonder. “What now?”

Clarke gulped and glanced over her shoulder at Octavia, who was blatantly staring. Caught, Octavia nodded stiffly at the pair of them, then walked to Jasper to help him mess with the giant door latch.

“Let’s stand up,” Clarke suggested, and together they teetered up onto their feet. Just as Bellamy straightened, his hand sliding down once more to entwine with Clarke’s, the metal box holding them lurched, and they all had to grab the walls to stay upright.

A great groaning noise rumbled outside, and the door panel locking them in cracked open. Morning light spilled into the container, washing over the four Skaikru refugees, and in the bright haze they could just make out the shape of a young woman.

Clarke reached into her coat for the box that carried the Flame of Becca Promheda, and Bellamy’s warm hand on her back nudged her forward into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _But I know once in a while we will find_   
>  _The sound of your heart beats with mine._   
>  _And when it's time,_   
>  _I'll leave the ocean behind._

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to tumblr user [lee-face](http://lee-face.tumblr.com) who made this [AMAZEBALLS FANART of chapter 2](http://lee-face.tumblr.com/post/144925229517/bellamys-hands-went-instantly-to-her-face). It moved me and then it made me laugh. I'm so flattered and honored you thought to do fanart of my fic.


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